Gorgonian from spring swap

[Crooked Reef]

I got a piece of a gorgonian from the CDP at the spring swap and I honestly don't know who donated it or species. I have been having issues with my tank for a 2-3 months. Sps including montipora that was growing like a weed for a year is dead. Lps is also dying back, most have completely died with no signs of brown jelly. They would slowly recede like they were starving even with target feeding. The best guess was that my lights were set too low after I borrowed a par meter and I have been bringing them up slowly over the past month.

Water parameters are as follows

Mag 1360
Calcium 420
Nitrates 5-10
Phosphates .02 though they did get a bit high for a few weeks. Up to .21
Alk steady at 8.5
Nitrites and ammonia undetectable. All of these parameters are stable and have been checked by me with my test kits as well as three lfs and verified. My refractometer was off and my salinity was high for a while, but it has since been brought back down to correct levels. I did this over the course of a week and it has been two weeks since this was done with corals still declining.


Today I was reading and came across a fact that some gorgonians can produce some pretty potent allelopathic chemicals. I had no idea of this so now I am asking if anyone else who got a piece of the gorgonian has had any issues or if whomever donated it may see this and know exactly what species it is?

 

[Pife]

I'm fairly certain it's from Nick and he has a blossoming tank with a huge gorgonian in it.


What is your salinity and how do you measure it?

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[Pife]

Phosphates..21 and a fast swing up or down are plenty to wipe out a reef in my opinion as well.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[Crooked Reef]

Salinity is now at 35ppt. My old calibration solution went out of whack and it raised to 38ppt. This would have had to be a slow climb. I bought some new calibration solution and lowered it over the course of a week.

The phosphates were tested with an api kit until I got a Hannah checker then lowered with phosphate rx over a 2 week period with some dialing in of more biopellets to keep them steady. I do have a brs reactor I can throw some carbon in that I used to use for gfo in an older tank.

The only other thing I can think of is that I added some marinepure spheres a while back. There is talk of them leaching aluminum, but I have run polyfolter and never gotten a reading off of that. They can break down over time and it is possible they are putting off microscopic dust particles but I can’t verify this.

 

[Pife]

How do you test salinity?

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[Crooked Reef]

Lighting is two gen4 radion xr15 pros. I had them pretty low at 35% intensity but everything was doing good up until around after the spring swap. I borrowed the par meter a month ago and have brought them up to 55% intensity on their coral ab program, with lowered uv because one of the lfs guys said they don’t have their uv that high just to try it out. My par numbers will be where they should be in another 10% intensity. I have all of that written down at home. I can get those later if anyone needs them.

 

[Crooked Reef]

Sorry, refractometer. I have had it tested at gateway and it reads accurately on their tanks.

 

[Crooked Reef]

Also no inverts have been added except an anemone crab which was only a couple of weeks ago. The only fish I have that may be a coral eater is an African flameback angel, but I was having issues prior to adding it and I have watched the tank for hours waiting for it to pick at a coral and have never witnessed it doing so.

Tank has been running since March of 2017 and I have had tanks for over 15 years. Not that experience truly means I know what I am doing in this hobby, but I have never had an issue like this. My wife and I are almost ready to give up on corals which I really don’t want to do. I just looked at a pic of my tank from March and it is horrible how much I have lost. It’s been so slow that it didn’t seem like it was too much until you look at the big picture.

 

[Nanook]

Stability is the key with successful reef tanks. Yoyoing parameters like you’ve experienced in salinity and nutrients will kill stony corals, both LPS and SPS. I am not a fan of bio pellets or dosing to keep nutrients stable either, seen way too many coral deaths ime using them.

Good husbandry, with regular testing, water changes, limited feeding and consistent parameters of the big 3 are my ideas of a winning formula. I doubt it’s the gorgonian 100 percent!

 

[Crooked Reef]

I kind of doubted it was the gorgonian as well, just trying to cover all my bases and came across the allelopathy of some species of gorgonians so I wanted to see if anyone else had any issues with the same gorgonian. Thanks for the advice everyone

 

[oshanickreef]

I would increase the flow for the gorgonian. If they grow algae on their skin they can't defend, which is why they do better in low light. But if you crank the flow it will blow algae off the skin and the gorg will be healthy! Also p04 of .02 seems very low in my opinion... I'm currently trying to figure out how to balance nitrates and phosphates.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Crooked Reef]

Thanks, it’s actually in a shaded area in front of an mp10. It’s doing great itself, it’s lps and sps I have been having trouble with. I really didn’t think it was necessarily the gorg. It’s just not often you can see if anyone else had an issue with the same coral.

 

[oshanickreef]

Thanks, it's actually in a shaded area in front of an mp10. It's doing great itself, it's lps and sps I have been having trouble with. I really didn't think it was necessarily the gorg. It's just not often you can see if anyone else had an issue with the same coral.

Hmm if your alk and cal are consistent then i am stumped.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Crooked Reef]

So am I. The odd thing to me is my derasa clam and anemones are doing great.